Perske's List: False Confessions From 75 Persons ... - Robert Perske

was traced to a Pacifica man, 26-year-old Antonio Santiago, a man with intellectual disability. After
being interrogated, he gave officers a solid confession. They reported that Santiago, while bored and
sitting around with friends, suddenly decided to make the call. Santiago pleaded ―no contest‖ and
faced 6 months in jail. A later follow-through showed that the police traced the wrong phone number.
It was off by one digit (Melvin, 2010).
Cornelius Singleton (Alabama, 1922): Too Early for Modern Forensics to Save
In 1977, Sister Ann Hogan was killed while praying in a Mobile cemetery. Eye witnesses identified a
man thought to be the killer as White with blonde hair, but Cornelius Singleton, an illiterate Black man
with an IQ between 55 and 65 was picked up. He was taken to the cemetery and then to the police
station, where he was questioned for many hours. Finally, an attorney dictated the sentences, one by
one, that Singleton parroted back while another investigator wrote them down. He was led to believe
that he had signed a confession to stealing bed sheets at an earlier time in his life. He unknowingly
waived his right to a defense counsel. He never received an independent investigation. His conviction
was overturned when the U.S. Supreme Court voted against execution in 1972. In 1981, he was
retried and sentenced to death again. He was executed in 1992 (Farrell, 2000).
James Thompson, Jr. (Maryland, 1988): Police Reward Leads to Wild Confession (Soon to Be
Saved by DNA)
When the police offered a $1000 reward connected with a rape and murder, James Thompson
claimed he found the murder weapon. This turned out to be a big mistake, considering that earlier in
life, he ―suffered a serious head injury and was low functioning‖ (Tamber, 2007). Investigators took
him in for questioning and came out with a bizarre confession that led to rape and murder convictions
for himself and a close friend. Recent DNA tests show that the semen in the victim belonged to a third
person. Also, outside of the confession, no forensic evidence linked the two with the crime. Both
remain in prison.
David Vasquez (Virginia, 1984): Saved by DNA
Detectives approached Vasquez, 37, reported to be a man with mental retardation, while he was
cleaning tables at a McDonald's restaurant in Arlington. They asked him to come to headquarters with
them. With a taperecorder running, the detectives described to Vasquez the murder of a woman who
had been raped and strangled with a venetian blind cord. They then confronted him and told him
there was evidence showing that he was the killer. Too naive to believe that policemen would lie to
him, he broke down and cried for his mother. Three intense interrogations took place. During the third
one, he went into a dreamlike state. His meek, pleading voice became low pitched and steady as he
described how he killed the woman. Later, the police connected the crime to the real perpetrator with
the first successful use of DNA testing. Vasquez received a pardon on January 4, 1989, 5 years to
the day after the detectives approached him at McDonald's (Mones, 1995; D. Possley, 1989).
A Haunting Conclusion
I am a man who has spent 51 years in close contact with persons who have intellectual disability. I
started out working for 11 years as a chaplain in institutions in which these people were expected to
live out their lives. I loved working with these individuals, and I still do today. I loved writing about
them, too (see www.robertperske.com). Then, when society began to move individuals with